Joyce Helmickhttp://northsidesun.com/taxonomy/term/210/0
enThe reasons for supporting Initiative 42http://northsidesun.com/columns/reasons-supporting-initiative-42
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://northsidesun.com/sites/northsidesun.com/files/styles/large/public/field/image/Joyce%20Helmick.jpg?itok=99HXOT6L" width="576" height="494" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>As a grandparent, a 37-year educator in Mississippi classrooms, and the president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, I care deeply about every student in our sweet Magnolia State. Students are at the heart of everything I value and everything I do.</p>
<p>Our moral responsibility is to fully fund our children’s public education to provide all of our students – regardless of their zip code – with the tools, resources, support, and time to learn. As educators, we know that good public education inspires students’ natural curiosity, imagination, and love of learning. The most important lesson we teach is the love of learning.</p>
<p>Public schools that nurture these values today are growing tomorrow’s inventors, thinkers, artists, and leaders. For these reasons, Mississippi educators strongly support Initiative 42.</p>
<p>To ensure that we fund good public schools in every community, 200,000 Mississippians signed the petition that put Initiative 42 on the ballot this November. We are serious about every child’s future. We intend to require our elected representatives to keep their promise to our students and to get serious about doing what works for public education.</p>
<p>Doing what works means providing all public schools with the resources that they need for their students and educators to prepare every student for a bright future.</p>
<p>Funding provides for :</p>
<p>· class sizes that enable educators to connect one-on-one with students,</p>
<p>· up-to-date text books with enough books for every student to take them home to study at night and on the weekends,</p>
<p>· current technology including broadband,</p>
<p>· safe playground equipment,</p>
<p>· dependable buses to transport safely our precious students from their homes to school and home again,</p>
<p>· strong roofs and walls that keep out the elements,</p>
<p>· libraries filled with books and resources, and</p>
<p>· a well-rounded curriculum that includes the three A’s of a great public education: Arts, Academics, and Athletics.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Doing what works also means ensuring that every educator has the resources, mentoring, and support that every professional needs.</p>
<p>Never before in the history of our state have elected officials decided to place a competing measure on the ballot. Yet in an unprecedented move, opponents of funding our students’ public education placed a decoy on the ballot.</p>
<p>Every person in Mississippi knows that decoys — when brought home — don't put meat on the table. Their decoy maintains the status quo for our students and educators, which means that they intend to continue the public school funding crisis they have created. Shame on them.</p>
<p>State leaders have shortchanged public education by $1.7 billion since the last time they fully funded our students’ schools, which was in 2008. To try to close the gap, counties and cities have been forced to raise our local school property taxes by $85 million, based on data from the Mississippi Department of Education.</p>
<p>This is wrong.</p>
<p>Mississippi educators are committed to keeping the promise to fully fund public education and leading the way to ensure Initiative 42 passes. Our message is clear. Our students, educators, and communities, as well as our local businesses, towns, and cities deserve thriving public schools. We know that when state-elected leaders fully fund our public schools year in and year out, our students will thrive and so will the communities and businesses where they live.</p>
<p>Mississippi educators support and are working to pass Initiative 42. Follow us at facebook.com/educatorsfor42.</p>
<p>The future of our children and grandchildren is in our hands. We ask our state leaders to join us – in both word and deed – in our commitment to students and to passing Initiative 42. We encourage all voters – parents, educators, business owners, community, and faith-based leaders – to support Initiative 42 on November 3.</p>
<p>Joyce Helmick, president</p>
<p>Mississippi Association of Educators</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-section field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/columns"><span>Columns</span></a></div></div></div>Fri, 02 Oct 2015 15:38:46 +0000nhodum1269 at http://northsidesun.com